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I am working on a new Tyranid army for myself, the Chitin is a core of green, shifting to yellow, then to orange, and finaly to red. Now I don't know what to do for a flesh color, currently I have a natural flesh tone but I was thinking possibly a blue white color or even a deep brown with red being inside the joints. If I use the blue white color I would use deep blue for the crevices.

Jamaican skin colour would work

 Kroothawk wrote:
Jamaican skin colour would work

rasta tyranids?

to be honest... those colors just dont look good together... and you where thinking of a blue color in the joints? your just using too many colors on such a small surface!! even if you where the best painter in the world and your blends where as smooth as a babies bum you couldnt make it look great...

sorry for the harshness but i strongly suggest you cut down on the amount of colors you are using.

for the chitin:
a transition from blue to yellow can work
a transition from green to yellow can work
a transition from yellow to orange works
a transition from yellow to a deep red works

but i suggest to keep the lighter colors toward the edges instead of inside the crevices because if you dont you will have to shade those lighter colors creating more work and a greater challenge...

the skintone combined with the red inside those whatever they are crevices work fine, although i suggest a brownish wash to shade and tidy up the paintjob...

so its an interesting concept but i strongly, STRONGLY suggest simplifying the colors for the chitin. use the color wheel to see what colors are a nice match to fade into each other and keep it simple. thats pretty much the golden tip for any paintjob...

The green and red look good together but i second the opition that there is too much going on.

How about;

Chitin: Dark Angel green to Scorpion green (im using the old GW paint names, no idea what the new ones are)
Flesh: Dark Red (the foundation or scab red) with red/orage crevices.

Much as "simple is best" is a good way to go and the above do have a point. If you still want to use these colours may I suggest for the carapace use the red from the inside of the plates (start darker) and fade to yellow at the edges, and then do the body green in the deepest part (so dark in the crevices) and towards the body and fade that to yellow at the extremities (hands, feet/hooves, end of tail).

Really work on the transitions from one colour to the other. You need space to blend colours together seamlessly and trying to go from green through yellow to red on those little plates is asking too much, the transition is too quick.
If you find wet blending isn't working try fethering towards the edges of the carapace. There's plenty of tutorials about both techniques here on Dakka.

Above all, one thing I always try to achieve with my tyranids is to make it look natural (as natural as an alien can be) and look to nature for inspiration (google for colourful crabs and beetles etc...) as they can give you a good idea as to how nature positions colours irl.

Good luck.

Kroothawk wrote:Jamaican skin colour would work

Gabbi wrote:

 Kroothawk wrote:
Jamaican skin colour would work

rasta tyranids?

Well I have been found out . Yes the gaunt is now brown flesh tone so doubly found out .

On a side note about colors from nature, that is where the color palette is coming from. I looked at a tree while driving to town one day and said, those colors are going on Tyranids. I will agree thought that the chitin color is extremely busy but I love the colors.

I'd at least try to dull them down a little, they look very... rainbowy right now. Like starbursts.

Well I will say, the color bursts far harder with brown skin, .

Well of you insist on using those colors i suggest using a different technique to apply them. Because you want people that see your models to recognize that idea you had when you saw that tree and it looks nothing like that at the moment. I still think you should take out the green.

(and why did you want to use blue in the joints?)

I also think that there is maybe a little too much color in there.

bunkerbob try this:
http://www.fallensunasylum.org/nids/online_painter.html

Tinkering with the colors, I built this. Purple is one of my favorites so I am totally into it .

nothing wrong with that! looks like one of the existing hive fleets (behemoth?) and it looks like a great color scheme to paint!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
or if you wanna stick to your original colors (fall themed) you could try something like this:

I shall sacrifice my first born in your name.

Bit much.


"thanks" probably would have done.

Actually I kind of like the rasta 'nids, lol. They'd be a good novelty army. You just need to work on the transitions IMO, use a brush with a sharper tip and blend them with sharper streaks so they look neater, similar to the 'nids in my gallery. I certainly wouldn't add any more colours, do the flesh a duller orangish brown or duller greenish tone or maybe even black and I think they'd look good.

But if you don't want the rasta look then do whatever you please, lol.

 Praxiss wrote:
Bit much.


"thanks" probably would have done.

i do not agree!

the firstborn will do fine

Where can I find guides on blending transition colors?

Its not hard, you will need glaze or matte medium and drying retarder

*edit*
okay so now im on my pc thats a lot easier then on my phone...

glaze medium will allow you to thin the amount of pigment in your paint without actually thinning the consistency of your paint. so you can build up layers with a much smoother transition.
the drying retarder will keep your paints from drying so you can make colors transition much easier by fading them into eachother...

hope this kind of helps good luck and be sure to post your work

I usually just water down my paints and do many thin layers.

What I am thinking is using red first that is really watery then when it dries slightly I will do a watered down orange and let that dry, do another layer or orange again that is watered down then add a watered down layer or yellow. The ends will use a base coat of yellow on each chitin shell.

I've never used two wet layers of paint at one time so I have no idea how it will fair. .

It makes blending really easy... And blending paints thinned with water, enought to glaze with them, will make them runny so you need the medium for that to keep your sanity intact... The 2 products together will cost you less the 10 bucks and will last you a good time